Title

Coordination

Problem Scenario

I am trying to find out whether or not video games help with hand eye coordination.

Broad Question

Which group has a better hand eye coordination?

Specific Question

If you play video games do you have a better hand eye coordination than people who play sports?

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that people who play sports have better hand eye coordination than people who play video games.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable: Types of people

Dependent Variable: Number of inches

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Hand-eye coordination
is the ability of the vision system to coordinate the information received through the eyes to control, guide, and direct the hands in the accomplishment of a given task, such as handwriting or catching a ball.

Read more: http://www.healthofchildren.com/G-H/Hand-Eye-Coordination.html#b#ixzz2O1yT3g00

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General Plan: My plan is to get a meter stick drop it into someones hand (who is playing video games or sports) and see how far it takes them to catch it. If the person takes more inches to catch it then they have less hand eye coordination.

Potential Problems And Solutions: If a person couldn't catch the meter stick at all, then I would've had to get a different person.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns: None

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
meter stick	1	Walmart	$3.98

Detailed Procedure: I experimented with two subjects. One person plays video games and does not play sports at this time. The other person is currently playing a sport and does not play video games. I tried to figure out which person would have the most hand eye coordination. By grabbing the meter stick & dropping it into the other persons hand, I was able to figure out which one had the better coordination. If the spot where the meter stick was caught had more inches, the person would have worse hand eye coordination than the person with less inches.

Diagram

Photo List

Time Line:

March 1st 2013 - Experimented
Week of March 8th - started entering data

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Data Table

Toss	Sports	Video Games
1	15 1/2 in	4 in
2	5 in	5 in
3	7 in	5 1/2 in
Total Average	9.2 in	4.8 in

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

Graphs

Photos

Results

It was proven & concluded that the subject involved in sports has better hand - eye coordination.

Conclusion

The subject who is involved currently in a sport has better coordination. The more sports you play, the more active you are, the more your body can adapt to fast movements needed in every day life.

Discussion

Just as I predicted the person who played video games proved to have a better reaction time than the person who played sports. Even though the end results are closer than I anticipated, my prediction is still correct. This whole project was a great experience for me, I learned many new things. In order to go far in life you are going to need great friends, because without them I wouldn't have anybody to do my experiment. I also learned that you should use your time wisely. After doing this project I now know why some kids have really great hand eye coordination and it's because they play video games.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

Background Research

Sports have always been regarded as the best way to improve hand-eye coordination, but recently it has been proven that videogames may improve it just as much, if not more than sports. A recent study has shown that video game improved surgeon's hand-eye coordination enough that it was recommended that surgeons play a specially developed videogame before surgery in order to "warm up." The study found that surgeons who played video games for at least three hours a week made 37 percent fewer mistakes and performed the procedure 27 percent faster than those who did not play video games at all.
Although most mainstream sports are better for general coordination and balance, videogames are arguably better for improving fine motor skills (stability and steadiness of the hands and the ability to perform delicate actions). A quick look at the actions involved in a major sport such as baseball as compared to videogames should show the differences in hand-eye coordination improvement. In baseball you are using your eyes to track the ball while swinging your bat at where your eyes see the ball, this takes a lot of coordination as you need to maintain your balance, have a steady swing, have good bat accuracy, maintain enough bat speed to overpower the ball, and keep be able to predict where the baseball is going to be so that you can hit it. While playing a videogame (a First Person Shooter for example) you have to watch the screen, scan the screen for enemies or objects of interest, use your thumbs to move the analog sticks to navigate on-screen by maintaining the right pressure on the stick in the direction you would like to move, move your thumb off the analog sticks to press other buttons, and perform a lot of small adjustments while watching the screen. While playing baseball requires you to be more coordinated in general, playing a videogame requires you to use your eyes to adjust the amount of force each individual finger is using while your eyes analyze what each individual movement has done; the process then repeats itself as the gamer makes corrections or sees a new target.

References